Numerous attempts have been made to improve the general health and appearance of humans and animals, including improving the bone strength of humans and animals and the silkiness of the sheen of animal fur and hides and of human hair and skin. Attempts have also been made to increase the Omega-3 content of edible animal products. Most attempts at improving bone strength, the silkiness and the sheen of hair, fur, skin and hide, and of increasing the Omega-3 content of edible animal products have not been entirely successful and in some cases undesirable side effects have resulted.
Poor animal health is one of the main problems of animal raisers and poor health amongst humans has resulted in a 450 billion dollar human disease business in 1986.
Weak, brittle bones have been attributed to a lack of calcium in the diet. However in broiler chickens even when calcium levels are optimized, approximately one out of ten broilers has a broken leg at the time of slaughter. In humans, it has been reported by D. M. Hegsted (Journal of Nutrition 116:2318-2319 (1986)) that in areas of the world where calcium consumption is highest, there are also high levels of osteoporosis and hip fractures. Clearly calcium alone will not solve the problem of weak bones. Accordingly, other factors need to be studied that might be important in making strong bones.
Further few studies have looked at Omega-3 deficiency as a possible cause of general poor health such as weak bones, dull hair, and high blood pressure, although Omega-3 deficiency has been linked to cardiovascular problems and is believed to lower the incidence of cancer, diabetes, arthritis, and other degenerative diseases ("Omega-3 Phenomenon" by Donald Rudin, M.D. (1987) Rawson Assoc. N.Y.).
While flax seed is known to contain Omega-3, as linolenic acid, no reports are known to the present inventor of attempts to use flax seed as a source for the Omega-3 to try to improve human or animal health or to try to increase the Omega-3 content of edible animal products. This is probably because the prevailing view in the art has been that raw whole flax seed contains toxins harmful to humans as well as animals.
For example, it has been reported that flax seed inhibits growth and is harmful to chickens, and by inference, to humans (Schlamb, K. F., Poultry Science, p. 1404 (1955)). Another study reported that flax seed contains a factor called antipyridoxine factor that is toxic to poultry (Klosterman. H. J. in a study presented at the Flax Institute of the U.S.A. in 1965).
Similarly, U.S. Pat. No. 4,543,264 discloses in one example that raw flax seed killed all of the turkey polts to which it was fed. Thus the teaching is that raw flax seed must be extracted with alcohol and heated, which removes the Omega-3 containing oil from the flax seed, before flax seed can be consumed.
Further, in the book "Food For Health" (Ensminger and Rolson (1986)) it is stated that flax seed contains a toxic glucoside which must be detoxicated by heating before eating.
Where flax seed has been proposed for use in animal feed, the flax seed is processed first in order to remove the Omega-3-containing oil.
For example, U.S. Pat. No. 4,543,264, referred to above, discloses feeding processed flax seed-containing feed to cows and turkey polts. The flax seed is processed by an alcohol method which removes the Omega-3-containing oil from the flax seed. Further, the control used in the turkey poult study involves feeding non-processed flax seed to the turkey poults. All of the turkey poults fed non-processed flax seed died before the trials ended.
U.S. Pat. No. 3,246,989 discloses a fermented feed for calves. The fermented feed contains 20-30% linseed meal or extracted course-ground linseed. Both linseed meal and extracted course-ground linseed, by definition, have had the Omega-3-containing oil removed therefrom.
Similarly, U.S. Pat. No. 59,255 discloses animal feed containing a small amount of oil or flax seed meal. As mentioned above, flax seed meal is flax seed that has been treated to remove as much Omega-3-containing oil as possible.
U.S. Pat. No. 949,416 discloses cattle food consisting of 84% old processed oil meal. The patent defines "old processed oil meal" as meal that is made from flax seed by grinding or pressing the oil from the seed, instead of extracting the oil with acids. Thus, the disclosure is that the flax-seed meal used in the food has had as much Omega-3-containing oil as possible removed.
Additionally, U.S. Pat. No. 1,627,921 discloses animal feed containing treated roughages. One of the roughages can be flax plant by-product Since flax seed is a main product of the flax plant, the disclosure is that flax seed would not be expected to be part of the roughage.
More recently, it has been shown that flax seed contains from 0.1 to 0.8% cyanogenic glycosides (Schilcher, H. and Wilkens-Sauter, Zietschr. Fette-Seifen-Anstrichmittel, pp. 113-117, Aug. 1986). It has also been reported that this glycoside (linamarin) can be split to release cyanide only in a weakly sour environment (pH 5.5 to 6), and cannot be split in a strongly sour environment as normally exists in human or animal stomachs (Schilcher, H. Berlin, V. Schulz, Koln, and A. Nissler, Herrenberg, Zietschrift fur Phytotherapie 7:113-117 (1986)). Further, no side effects or toxic signs were observed when humans consumed as much as 300 grams per day of whole raw flax seed, although no benefits were reported from consumption of the whole raw flax seed.
Despite this observation, there still exists drawbacks to using flax seed to obtain Omega-3 for consumption, namely the rate at which extracted linolenic acid turns rancid. When linolenic acid is extracted from flax seed to make linseed oil paint, it turns rancid within seconds. Rancid linseed oil is very unpalatable to humans and animals and is also highly toxic to humans and animals.